Troublesome Treasure
by USxArthurxKirklandxUK
Summary: While helping Gunter sort through and clean the treasure storeroom, Wolfram finds yet another troublesome treasure with unexpected results. While his body stays the same, his mind reverts to that of a child!
1. Chapter 1

Troublesome Treasure

Troublesome Treasure

Summary: While helping Gunter sort through and clean the treasure storeroom, Wolfram finds yet another troublesome treasure with unexpected results. While his body stays the same, his mind reverts to that of a child!

A/N: Got the idea while watching episode 44… XD Ulrike, got to love your 'other self'.

--

Wolfram pushed another heavy box out of the way, swearing under his breath. Just why he'd agreed to help the nose-bleeding freak, he'd never know. He pried the lid off, and began moving the so-called 'treasures' out of the box to be dusted and generally cleaned up.

He picked up a small amulet, and blinked. He used a finger to brush off the small red gem in the middle, which was covered in dust.

A bright light lit up the whole room, and Wolfram yelled out in surprise.

Almost immediately, Gunter had run from his end of the storeroom to Wolfram's. "Wolfram!"

Wolfram was unconscious, lying next to the box that he'd been sorting through. Around his neck was a gold pendant with a red gem as a centerpiece, tucked underneath his blue uniform. Gunter called at the soldiers near the door to get help. One of them ran off to get Conrad and His Majesty, not sure what else to do.

--

Yuuri sighed, looking over at his fiancé-by-accident. Wolfram was lying under the covers of Yuuri's—or, according to the stubborn prince, 'their'—bed. He didn't seem harmed in any way, but he still hadn't woken up, even though he'd passed out that afternoon, and it was nearly ten o'clock.

Even if he wasn't in love with the blonde, he still worried about him. What could have happened to Wolfram in the treasure room? Well, that was a stupid question… that place was full of weird and dangerous things…

Wolfram stirred, and Yuuri jumped to attention, smiling. "Wolfram!"

Wolfram's eyes opened sleepily. "Huh…?"

"You're awake, finally! How are you feeling?" Yuuri asked with one of his famous wimpy smiles.

"Yuu-chan…"

Yuuri blinked. Since when did Wolfram call him Yuu-chan? That was his mother's thing.

"Yuu-chan!"

Yuuri yelped as Wolfram tackled him. "W-Wolfram, what're you—"

"I love you, Yuu-chan!"

"Oh, no. No, no, no…" Yuuri gulped. This scene was all too familiar. He'd have to check and make sure Ulrike's spirit was still where it belonged.

"Yes," Wolfram insisted, smiling childishly. "Yes, yes, yes."

Yuuri tried his best to wriggle out of Wolfram's grip, but failed miserably. "Wolfram, really, get off…!" he insisted, trying to pry Wolfram's fingers from his jacket, panicking.

Wolfram shook his head, his hands clenching tighter, and he snuggled against Yuuri's chest. "No, Yuu-chan!"

"Wolfram, what's gotten into you?" Yuuri struggled more, but knew it was a losing fight.

Wolfram didn't answer. He just adjusted his position on top of Yuuri so that his arms were around Yuuri's waist, his head tucked under Yuuri's chin, smiling – even Yuuri had to admit this – cutely. "I love you, Yuuri…"

Yuuri sighed. He was stuck. "Wolfram… Really, get off…"

Wolfram's emerald-green eyes began to tear up, and he looked down at his fiancé. "D-Do you hate me, Yuuri?"

"Wha?" Yuuri stared up at Wolfram, shocked.

"Yuuri hates me!" Wolfram began crying, and suddenly jumped off of Yuuri, running over to the corner. He crouched down, buried his head in his arms, and cried like a little kid.

Yuuri stared at Wolfram in shock. "…Wolf…"

"Go away!" Wolfram yelled, muffled. "Yuuri's mean!"

"Wolfram…" Yuuri half-crawled over to the other boy, placing his hand on Wolfram's shoulder. Wolfram jumped. "Wolfram, calm down. I don't hate you, okay?"

Wolfram sniffed. "So… so, Yuuri loves me, too?"

Yuuri knew that he wouldn't get anywhere by say no to that particular question, so he decided to use the safe answer. "Yeah. Now come here, okay?"

Wolfram sniffed one last time, and hugged Yuuri again.

Yuuri sweatdropped. Not exactly what he'd had planned, but…

"Yuuri?"

"Hm?" Yuuri looked down at Wolfram.

"Can we go outside and play?" Wolfram asked innocently.

Yuuri had to try hard not to smack himself. "Er… sure, Wolf. You want Greta to come play, too?"

Yuuri found out that was a bad question to ask. Wolfram clung to him tightly, shaking his head stubbornly. "No! Yuuri's mine!"

Yuuri choked as the wind was knocked from him from the force of Wolfram's death-grip around his stomach. "All right, all right. It'll be just the two of us, okay?" Wolfram lessened his grip somewhat, and nodded. "Good. Let's go, then, Wolfram."

Yuuri sighed. Until they figured out what was wrong with Wolfram, this would be a very tiring period of time for him…

--

"Had any luck yet, Gunter?" Yuuri asked, dropping another stack of heavy ancient tomes next to his advisor.

"I'm sorry, Your Highness!" Gunter tried to hug Yuuri (as if it would make him feel better), but was stopped by Yuuri's foot stuck into his chest. "I'm afraid I haven't read anything yet… But there's so much to go through…!"

"Do your best, Gunter," Yuuri sighed. "I only wish I could be more help, but Wolfram—"

"Yuu-chan!"

Yuuri sighed as his now-suddenly-childish fiancé clamped onto his arm. "Wolfram, you found me."

"Yup. My turn to hide now," Wolfram laughed. "Count to one-hundred!"

Yuuri sighed and amused him. He turned towards the nearest stack of books and began counting. "One, two, three…"

Wolfram turned and ran out the door, smiling widely the whole way.

Yuuri turned back to Gunter, absent-mindedly counting in his head. Wolfram seemed to have a third sense of if he were looking or not, and he'd eventually show up, crying, and refuse to be comforted, saying that Yuuri wanted him to stay hidden away or lost. This had only happened once, and Yuuri did not want a repeat of this moment.

While Yuuri shakily tried to help Gunter read through the ancient books (oh, how he hated the Mazoku writing system), he got to one hundred far too quickly. He'd half-deciphered the name of one of the objects when he reached his time limit, and began to go look for his immature fiancé. Written in Yuuri's handwriting (in Japanese, of course), was written: "Amulet of…"

--

Wolfram yawned, rubbing his eye. When was Yuuri going to find him? The sun was going down, and he was getting hungry… He shivered against the cold. He'd thought that the tall tower in the castle would make a good hiding place – barely anyone went there, and of course, the maids barely came up to clean because of that. For that reason, there were numerous objects to hide behind, in, or around, and a lot of junk to camouflage said hiding place. He'd thought it was even better to hide in the attic-like area of the roof rafters, but had soon regretted it when he couldn't get back down.

However, there was also the unfortunately fact that there happened to be no heating, no fires burned in this part of the castle. Because of this, it got bitterly cold at night, mostly because of its altitude.

Wolfram unbuttoned the top button of his coat, flipped up his collar, and snuggled his head into his chest, trying to warm up. He felt like crying. What if Yuuri never came for him? What if Yuuri abandoned him and went and found someone else? He didn't want Yuuri to do that – Yuuri was his, though he didn't know why.

He heard footsteps, and his head perked up. He looked down, and saw that beloved black head.

"Man. Where on Earth did he go?" He heard Yuuri mumble to himself.

"Yuu-chan!" he yelled, waving his arms.

Yuuri's head swiveled up to see Wolfram. "Wolfram!" he called, running towards him.

"Yuuri, you came!" Wolfram laughed, suddenly feeling a lot warmer. Yuuri came for him, and that was all the stubborn prince cared about.

"How'd you get up there?" Yuuri asked, confused.

"I piled some stuff together, but when I climbed up here, they all fell," Wolfram admitted, embarrassed. "Please, Yuuri… I can't get down!"

Yuuri saw the remainder of the makeshift pile Wolfram had use, and began tossing stuff back up onto it to rebuild it. "Don't worry. I'll get you down. I promise."

Wolfram smiled widely, and nodded.

Yuuri climbed up the small hill of broken chairs, old books, and other miscellaneous junk until Wolfram was within arm's reach. He held out a hand, which the blonde took thankfully. Yuuri helped Wolfram keep his balance as he climbed out of the rafters. As soon as they were back on the wooden floor, Wolfram grabbed Yuuri around the middle, smiling innocently. "Yuu-chan, I was so scared…! I thought maybe you'd forgotten about me…"

Yuuri darkened. "It's fine," he murmured, rubbing the other boy on the back. "Trust me, Wolfram. There's no way I'd just forget about you, okay?"

Wolfram nodded, guilty that he'd even doubted Yuuri in the first place. "I promise, I'll never think anything like that ever again."

Yuuri smiled. "Good. Come on. You must be starved." As if to answer, Wolfram's stomach growled, and the blonde covered it with a hand, blushing. Yuuri simply smiled and led the other boy downstairs. The blonde kept a firm hold of Yuuri's hand, smiling the whole way.

--

Yuuri watched as Wolfram stared at his brothers, a spork half way into his mouth. "Yuu-chan?"

"Hn?" Yuuri asked, taking a bite of meat.

"Why do my brothers look so… old?"

Yuuri nearly choked on his food. Gwendal's forehead wrinkled in distaste. Conrad blinked, chuckled, and went back to eating. "Er, I don't really know?" Yuuri seemed to be wondering this himself.

"Oh…"

"Your Majesty!" Gunter, of course, busted down the door in his earnest to be of use to Yuuri. Yuuri sweatdropped. "Your Majesty, I found it! It was in the tome you so wisely chose first…!"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Wolfram blinked in confusion, staring at the lavender-haired man that was currently babbling to Yuuri about something. He felt a surge of annoyance at the man's close proximity to his Yuuri, but let it pass for now.

"That's great! What'd it say?" Yuuri asked, also seemingly excited.

Gunter cleared his throat. "It's called the Amulet of Innocence, Your Highness…" Gunter showed an illustration of the necklace to the teenage king. "Rubbing the red gem on this side will cause the person's mind to be reverted to that of a child's."

"So Wolfram must have picked it up and rubbed the red gem," Yuuri realized. "How do we fix it?"

"Well, it took me a while to decipher the text, since it was so faded, but it says that rubbing the _black_ gem on the opposite side of the Amulet will cause the effects to be reversed."

"Okay, so we just have to find the Amulet and make Wolfram rub the black one, and then he'll be normal?" Yuuri asked for clarification. "Easy!"

Wolfram blinked. Why were they talking about him? Did he do something bad? Was Yuuri mad at him?

"Wolfram!" Yuuri turned back to his fiancé, smiling. Wolfram blinked in reply. "Do you remember a small necklace? It looks like this." Yuuri showed Wolfram the illustration from the book.

Wolfram looked at it for a few seconds before recognizing it. He nodded at Yuuri meekly. "What about it, Yuu-chan?"

"We need to find it, Wolfram. Do you know where it is?"

"The necklace attaches itself to the last person to use it," Gunter explained. "Meaning that it's somewhere on Wolfram's person."

Yuuri looked at Wolfram expectantly. The prince stared back, still confused. Yuuri sighed after a few moments of this. "Wolfram, could I have the necklace?" he asked.

Wolfram's hand flew to his neck. For some reason, he didn't want to give it to Yuu-chan. "No," he replied, shaking his head.

"Wolfram, give it," Yuuri said again, only slightly annoyed at his fiancé's sudden childish behavior.

"No!" Wolfram growled, his hand closing around the necklace through his shirt.

Conrad stood up, making a move towards his brother. "Wolfram, just give it to Yuuri. He's trying to help."

"No! I don't want to!" Wolfram insisted, standing up as well. His eyes flashed dangerously, and Conrad visibly backed down. Wolfram glanced quickly around the room and sprinted out, leaving his food barely touched at all.

Yuuri made a move to go after the stubborn prince, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. "Conrad! Why are you stopping me?" he complained.

"Wolfram's element is fire, Yuuri. It's connected heavily to his moods… As a child, he didn't know how to control it well enough to use it. But now that his body's used to the Maryoku being usable, he could accidentally hurt someone because of a small pinpoint of anger towards them. That includes you. Let Gwendal and I handle this," Conrad requested.

"But…"

"Not buts, Your Majesty. Your safety comes first, no matter what the reason," Gwendal interrupted.

"But Wolfram's my friend!" Yuuri shot back.

"It isn't your fault that Wolfram picked up the wrong treasure at the wrong time, Yuuri," Conrad assured him. "So don't try to fix it. Gwendal and I can handle it."

Yuuri growled under his breath and looked away. "Good luck finding him," he grumbled. "Took me nearly two hours. Why'd he do that, anyways?"

"Well, the amulet can have a bit of an… addicting quality to it. The wearers often have a strange tendency of not wanting the effects of the red side reversed," Gunter explained. "That's as far as I've been able to read. I apologize, Your Majesty…! I'll get right on the rest of the passage!

--

Yuuri yawned, and flopped back onto Wolfram's side of the bed. "Man, I'm tired…" he mumbled sleepily. He rolled onto his side, and heard a muffled yelp. He jumped up, and looked down, seeing emerald-green eyes peering back him.

"Y-Yuu-chan?"

"Wolfram! There you are!" Yuuri was honestly glad that he was safe – after all, he'd gotten himself into more than a little trouble the past few hours as a (mental) child.

"Yuu-chan!"

Yuuri stumbled backwards as his frilly-nightgown-clad fiancé clamped himself around his midsection. Yuuri allowed it, bewildered but understanding that younger kids often took comfort in contact with others. "Wolfram, it's okay," he said quietly, patting the stubborn blonde's head comfortingly.

Wolfram sniffled. "S-so, you aren't angry with me, Yuu-chan? For running off like that?"

"No, I'm not mad, Wolfram," Yuuri assured him. "Why would you think I was mad?"

"Well, it's just… I thought maybe… that you'd be mad that I didn't do what you wanted me to do," Wolfram admitted. "But I just didn't _want_ to, Yuu-chan! I don't know why not, but I didn't!"

"It's okay, Wolfram. I won't make you take it off if you don't want to, okay?" Yuuri sighed. He'd rather deal with this situation in the morning. He was exhausted. Playing with little kids (well, he wasn't exactly a kid, but…) was the most tiring job in the world.

Wolfram looked at Yuuri with a small smile on his face.

Yuuri rolled back to the other side of the bed, yawned, and turned onto his side.

"Hey… Yuu-chan?"

"Yeah? Yuuri replied sleepily.

"You and the purple-haired-freaky-guy were talking about the necklace earlier… right?" he asked.

Yuuri nodded. "Yeah. Don't worry, Wolfram. It can wait until morning."

"You… were glad that I'd be different," Wolfram said reluctantly. "You were glad when he said that it'd change me."

Yuuri stiffened. "Wolf…"

"Do you hate me the way I am?" Wolfram whispered.

"No!" Yuuri sat up, indignant. "Wolfram, that's not it! It's just… I miss the old you. It's strange, seeing you so carefree and acting like a kid. You're normally so serious… You never get mad at me, and you're just… not the Wolfram I got used to."

"So you do hate it," Wolfram said quietly, sniffling and rubbing an eye with the back of his hand.

"Wolf, don't," Yuuri said quietly, wincing as the other boy started to cry silently. "Look. It's just that I'm used to the temperamental you. It's just strange for me. It's okay. I don't hate you, okay?"

"But you liked me before more. You love the other me more," Wolfram sniffled. "You don't love me the way I am now."

"Wolf…"

"I don't wanna talk about it," Wolfram said quietly, on the verge of bursting into tears.

Yuuri sighed and pulled the other boy into a hug. Wolfram let out a small squeak of surprise, but let Yuuri hold him, tears clinging to his long lashes. "Wolfram, it isn't that I don't like the way you are now. It's just that the guy I knew was different. It has nothing to do with the way you are now. If you want to, I'll let you stay like this and just get used to it. Okay?"

Wolfram nodded, burying his face into Yuuri's shoulder.

Yuuri lay back down, and Wolfram snuggled right up against him. Yuuri allowed this, his hand resting on Wolfram's hip; the king then closed his eyes and fell into a deep slumber.

Wolfram pulled the necklace out of the collar of his nightgown, and gazed at the red side for a moment. He turned it over, seeing the black side of the jewel. He'd heard Purple-Hair say something about rubbing the black side to reverse the effects.

Yuuri loved his other self, and he wanted Yuuri's love and acceptation more than anything else in the world.

Wolfram ran his forefinger over the onyx-black jewel, vaguely thinking about its resemblance to Yuuri's eyes.

--

Yuuri woke up to the sun shining in through his window. He opened his onyx-black eyes blearily, and looked around. Wolfram was gone. "Wolfram?" he called, blinking in confusion.

He heard a door slam. He turned towards the source of the noise quickly, and saw the door to his closet closed when he'd left it open the night before.

He walked over to it, eyebrows furrowing. His bare feet padded against the carpet quietly. "Wolfram? Is that you?" he asked.

"G-Go away!" It was definitely Wolfram, but for some reason, his voice was maybe a half-octave higher.

"Wolfram?" Yuuri reached out for the handle. His fingertips touched the handle, and he turned the handle, preparing to open it.

"NO!"

There it was. That forceful, no-nonsense tone that Yuuri had missed. But it was all wrong… Why was it so high-pitched? "Wolfram, I'm opening the door," he warned.

Yuuri felt slight resistance as he opened the door that strengthened. Was he really…? Yuuri tugged harder. He was.

Wolfram was holding the door shut.

"Wolfram, that's immature," he said in a warning tone.

"I don't care! Go away!" Wolfram yelled hysterically back at him.

"Wolfram—" Yuuri grunted as he heaved the door opened.

Wolfram yelped and spilled out of the closet, bringing a few other things with him, covering him in blankets, jackets, and spare shirts of Yuuri's. Yuuri fell back as well, landing roughly on his backside.

"I told you to go away!" Wolfram complained.

Yuuri looked up, and pushed a blanket off the pile that currently covered his fiancé.

Wolfram screamed bloody murder. "NO! DON'T LOOK AT ME!" he yelled in that oddly high-pitched voice, and Yuuri found one of his jackets chucked into his face.

"Wolfram, what's with you?" Yuuri asked, removing the jacket from his head, beyond confused with Wolfram's behavior.

Yuuri froze dead in his tracks.

Curled up in a small pile of blankets and looking none-to-happy was Wolfram, of course. But for some reason, he was miniaturized. Yuuri's fiancé's 'effects' _had_ been reversed, so the book hadn't lied… But it wasn't the way Yuuri had been hoping.

Instead of having the mind of a five-year-old, Wolfram now had the _body_ of one.


End file.
